I will start at the beginning… Wednesday evening I was waiting for Gregg to get home from work when he called an hour after he should of been home already. He was struck out at Whatcom Road exit. Only about 5 km from home. The poor little car decided that it wanted to die. It had finally had enough. He blew the motor. Something about a head gasket. Gregg said he would have to leave it and take a cab home. (He had waited 45 minutes for a bus but then he found out that it doesn’t take that route after 4pm). He arrived home about 9pm. He looked so tired and stressed I really thought he was going to fall over and laugh hysterically right then and there. But he didn’t. He held it together.

We had dinner, and sat and talked as to what we would do now. We needed a car. I called mom and asked her advise. She said “you need a new car.”(LOL) So, that was that, we had to find a car by Monday afternoon so that Gregg could get to work on Tuesday. The next morning we got up and I called mom again and said come pick us up lets head to the Auto Mall. An hour later we were on the lot of Hyundai Motors. We met a fantastic Dealer named Jamie. He showed us a few used cars, but it really didn’t do much for us. So we said show us some new cars.

The first one was the Tucson 4 cylinder. We took it out and it was nice but not enough power for its size. We then tried the V6, much better. Lots of power. We talked to Jamie and asked him what kind of deal we could get. He crunched some numbers and we talked and hummed and aahhed. It was getting late and we were getting hungry and tired. I said it would have to be blue…lol. He said “hang on and I’ll see if I can get you one.” Lucky for us the last one was just delivered an hour ago and the next closest one was in Kelowna. He gave us a red one to take home for the night and sleep on our decision.

Friday morning Gregg and I sat here having our morning coffee trying to decide what to do. We had spent the evening before talking and figuring out what we could afford and the pros and cons of buying new vs used and if we should look at other cars. After a couple cups of coffee we finally had a plan. I called my brother Rudy and made arrangements with him to tow the Geo Storm to his house (even tho he really didn’t want the car), then called mom and told her to meet us at the dealers at 11am. We still hadn’t made any decision. We drove out to the car met Rudy, helped him roll the car on to the trailer. We said our good-byes to the car, then we were off to the Dealership.

We got there and mom got there a few minutes later. Jamie came out to greet us. We told him to show us some cheaper cars. We test drove the Accent, I felt like a sardine in it. The next one up was the Elantra. It was roomier. The ride was nice and the seats were comfy. We talked with Jamie and asked him to figure out a deal for that one. He did and we took the info and went for lunch. Luck for us the Auto Mall has a Tim Horton’s on the corner. MMM…chili.

We finished our donuts and headed back. Gregg has crunched the numbers while we had lunch and figured out what the monthly cost would be for the Tuscan and the Elantra. We showed Jamie and asked him one more time as to the best deal he could give us on either car. The Elantra was about 100 bucks cheaper a month. Hmmm…what to do. Mom was getting impatient. We told her that she could leave since we were going to leave here with a car. Gregg and I talked a bit and tried to pick which one to take. Finally we had a decision. We told Jamie and he started the paper work.

It took another hour to do that and insure the car.It was Jamie’s Birthday and someone had brought in a cake so we each got a piece while the paperwork was getting done. It was done. Jamie put the plates on and handed us the keys. We happily thanked him for being so patient with us over the last 2 days and wished him a happy birthday and climbed into our new Tucson!

Our new car. Click on the photo and it will take you to a few more at our Flickr site.